


A Fraction of the Light that Remains

by sciathan_file



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen, post-epilogue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 08:13:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciathan_file/pseuds/sciathan_file
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mellark family has Good Days and Bad Days. Katniss' daughter must build her life on the shaky foundations that the past has thrown down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I don't own _The Hunger Games_. I could be witty about not owning it, but that seems awfully clichéd by now.
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely and dearest BookstoreCat. :)

**A Fraction of the Light that Remains**

sciathan file

**Part 1**

The truth is that even though she doesn't much like school to begin with, she might have _tried_ to pay attention had it not been for the blue sky outside and the promise of dandelions blooming in the meadow. Really, she just wants to be away and "away" means out in the fields, running. So when the teacher calls her up to the board and hands her the piece of chalk, everything is just numbers separated by lines that mean nothing to her. Time drags on and the only move she makes is to frown more, eliciting a few quickly stifled giggles from classmates wriggling in their seats.

Finally, because she is sure that it won't make sense and because she doesn't want to figure it out, she sets her jaw and places the chalk on the ledge of the board.

"I don't want to do it," she announces. 

The whole class is laughing now and she feels her cheeks flush. Avoiding Mrs. Argall's stern expression, she marches back to her desk. She doesn't so much as glance at anyone else. She simply spends the rest of the day stubbornly staring out the window. She thinks she hasn't done anything wrong, although her teacher doesn't see it that way. Unfortunately, while her behavior would normally merit a note she could "lose" on her way back to the Village, the school and her house are two of the few places in District 12 that have phones. 

And apparently Mrs. Argall intends to take advantage of that fact. 

Mrs. Argall directs her to remain seated at her desk while she fumbles to find the paper where her father wrote her home number at the beginning of the year. Then Mrs. Argall fumbles with the number pad before shouting too loudly at whoever happens to pick up the phone in her house (She hopes its not Uncle Haymitch. He gets even grumpier when people yell at him. Especially in the morning.).

The teacher then tells her to wait until someone comes for her and she's instructed to go over her work again. It makes no more sense on paper than it does on the board, though. Instead she uses the worksheet to draw pictures of plants and birds and Uncle Haymitch's geese chasing after her little brother. 

It's her father who comes.

He's tired from the walk and there are traces of green paint under his nails—it's still splattered up his arm and stains a rolled cuff of his shirt. She knows from the paint that she's interrupted work on the Plant Book, which means that it is definitely not a Good Day. ("Therapy" is what Uncle Haymitch calls it. But that must be an Uncle Haymitch only thing because the one time she talks about the book this way with her parents Uncle Haymitch got in trouble. And she hates getting in trouble because Uncle Haymitch doesn't let her play with the geese.).

Mrs. Argall calls her Daddy "Mr. Mellark" and talks to him in the quiet way adults do when they want something from you but won't ever tell you what it is. People always seem to talk to her parents this way, though. Her father is polite, as always, and smiles at Mrs. Argall even though she can tell he'd rather be at home painting. They talk about her in serious adult voices as if she isn't three desks away, but their conversation is full of explanations and questions that bore her. It's the type of conversation that Uncle Haymitch says she should stop listening to while she still can because, in the long run, she'll be a happier kid…not that she knows what that means.

She's about to finish shading the wings of a butterfly perched over problem #4 when a glance at her father's face distracts her. At first, she thinks he looks very tired. But then she remembers last night and thinks that maybe it is not just that.

Last night she was awoken by the familiar sounds of her mother's muffled shouts and the soft murmur of her father's voice. Nightmares, she knows, like the ones she sometimes has. Only Mommy's seem worse. And this morning it was only Daddy who brushed and braided her hair into its two neat plaits and only Daddy who sat with her, quietly eating left over orange rolls—her favorite—as her little brother babbled. Her mother only waved from the door, her hair loose, as Daddy carried her little brother to Uncle Haymitch's house and she left for school. 

His grip on her hand as they walked to school together this morning had been just a little bit tighter than usual. Kind of like how his grip on the desk in front of him is tightening now. It strikes her that she really should have known it is not a Good Day sooner. She has the good grace to glance over her doodles with a little remorse.

Not caring about the content of the adult conversation or even if she is interrupting, she stands up and announces, "Daddy, it is time to go home now." 

Mrs. Argall has stopped mid-sentence and is frowning, glancing from father to daughter.

In the force of her teacher's glare, she remembers her mother's warning that she does _not_ want to end up like Uncle Haymitch, so she should have _some_ manners. In deference to decorum she turns to Mrs. Argall and says, "I'm sorry for my behavior Mrs. Argall, but I need to go home now."

Her little brow furrowing at the concession she is about to make, she adds, "I promise I will be better tomorrow."

Before the teacher can argue—Mrs. Argall seems to like arguing—she grabs for her father's hand and he just shrugs at the older woman and says, "You can hold her to that." 

He gives his daughter a meaningful look. 

"I'll make sure she keeps her promise, too."

As they pass the newly sprouted shops in the Town's square, she notices that her father keeps a tight grip on her hand all the way home. Almost, she will think much later in her life, as if he knows that the solidity of her hand in his means that she is really real. 

He pauses once, releasing her hand in order to cling to an old fence. She waits patiently, as her mother has told her to do when Daddy gets tired, watching as he shuts his eyes tightly for a few moments and takes several deep breaths. Again, she feels bad because she thinks that his leg probably hurts from walking all the way to the school in town. But without explanation, he seems strangely fine again and they walk on.

When they get home, her mother's hunting jacket is not hanging on its normal peg, so she knows she is out in her woods somewhere. Her brother, too, is absent and probably still at Uncle Haymitch's house. 

Her father still says nothing. She wonders if, for a second, he might scold her…or, worse, show that he is disappointed in her. 

She'd rather have the anger than the disappointment.

She bites her lip as her father roots around the kitchen and deposits various items into an old cake box. For a moment, she fears that he has forgotten all about her and that is her punishment. But then, he places the box on the table with a small sack of flour and turns to her.

"You'll need your schoolwork," he tells her seriously (but she breathes a sigh of relief because in his voice is only a hint of disappointment), "you made a promise today. Don't you think it's important that you keep it?"

She retrieves the doodle-covered page—he raises his eyebrows when he sees what she's drawn—and then, without comment, he is pulling out a chair from the table and gesturing for her to come sit on his lap. For the first time, she notices that the box is full of baking equipment. But there must be some mistake: cakes only happen on Special Days when she has behaved herself. 

Then, one by one, he pulls out the set of metal measuring cups and puts them in a line in front of her from small to large. He picks up the largest one.

"This is one whole cup. When we bake a birthday cake this is the big measuring unit we use for things we need a lot of, like flour."

He turns the doodle-covered paper over and writes a "1."

"But," he continues, "Even if your little brother tries, we don't want to put a whole cup of sugar into our cake because then it wouldn't taste very nice."

She nods and tries to follow where he wants her to go.

"So we need to put less…" She says haltingly. "So…that's why you have to use the small cups."

Her father turns the paper back over and for the first time she sees that the numbers and lines on her schoolwork are the same as the numbers on the sides of her father's measuring cups.

"We need a _fraction_ of the amount of the flour," he explains, using the same word that she's heard Mrs. Argall fling around. She gathers it means the small pieces and it is because that is #5 (just visible under the geese flying through it). Her father dips the "1/4" cup and the "3/4" cup into the bag of flour and then, raising a small cloud as he does so, he carefully dumps them into the big 1 cup.

She stares for a moment, scrutinizing the numbers on the sides of the cups. Combined, the two smaller cups hold the same amount as the big whole cup. She has to think very hard about lines and numbers and what it all means for a moment.

"So," she tries, "even if we break the cup into pieces, we can add the pieces back up to make a, um, whole one."

He squeezes her shoulders.

"You've got it. Do you think you can do these?" He gestures to her schoolwork, his fingers come to rest over her butterfly. "I think Mrs. Argall would be happier if you'd copy it onto a new sheet, though."

Together they go through each of the problems, her father explaining when she gets stuck, and her filling up the measuring cups when she needs to see it. (Small hills of flour are testaments to the ones she gets wrong). When they finish, he brings out the top layer of a new cake flavor he's been perfecting and after dividing it up they eat exactly 2/8ths of it.

As she works her small family comes back together.

Her mother returns first. She's better than this morning and it is her who scolds her daughter for her behavior in class. Then her mother turns and scolds her father for giving her cake before dinner. Both father and daughter both pretend not to notice when a further 1/8th of it goes missing while a rabbit stew is still simmering on the stove.

Uncle Haymitch and her brother are the last to arrive, her brother riding piggyback on his uncle's shoulders. Both have feathers in their hair from chasing the geese during the course of the day. Her mother relays her behavior in disapproving tones and Uncle Haymitch just laughs and receives a dirty look from her as she stirs the stew.

"Sounds like someone else I know, sweetheart."

Uncle Haymitch takes a piece of cake before dinner with no remorse whatsoever.

"4/8ths" she states smugly, feeling very wise.

"1/2," corrects Uncle Haymitch, his mouth so full that crumbs fly out. "Kids these days sure are getting stupid."

She would protest that she's not—she's _smart_ —but her mother protests for her. There's a resounding thwack as her mother smacks him. A moment later her brother says "Not 'pposed to hit people, Momma."

Her mother stirs the stew as if it is an enemy.

"Uncle Haymitch is an exception."

She notices that her father is trying very hard not to laugh and that her brother's face is screwed up in confusion at the changes in the Rules of Life as he knows them. One day, she knows, her mother will regret saying that because if she knows her little brother—and she does—it'll come back to haunt her.

"Don't worry," her uncle winks at her brother, ruffling his hair. "Not the worst your mother's done to me…once she threw a _knife_ at me."

Retribution from her mother's hand is swift and _loud_. For a moment, she has no doubt that her mother once threw a knife at Uncle Haymitch, but all he really does in response to his punishment is to laugh all the harder. Eventually, as he always does, her father intervenes and somehow they all sit down around the kitchen table civilly and eat stew and big fluffy rolls.

And, just like this, the Bad Day ebbs away and is replaced by something not quite Good (she knows Good Days are in her mother's singing and her father's frosting and Uncle Haymitch's clear eyes, most of which aren't here today), but something _better_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Spoilers** through _Mockingjay_. This takes place after the epilogue.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I don't own _The Hunger Games_. I could be witty about not owning it, but that seems awfully clichéd by now.
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely and dearest BookstoreCat. :)

**Part 2**

Even on Bad Days, there's rarely a lack of people that take care of her. She's almost never alone. Her parents, her brother, and Uncle Haymitch are always there in some way, and sometimes even people from Before arrive to give her glimpses of the world outside of District 12.

Uncle Haymitch is usually dependable in the sense that she usually knows where to find him and that he is usually vaguely coherent (unless a train has just come). As long as he is awake, she can go over to his house when she likes. If he is asleep when she gets there, however, she is supposed to go get Daddy to wake him up. She only has to disobey this rule once before she realizes why (she dodges the knife and _both_ her parents get angry at her. Her father even raises his voice.). 

So the next time she tries to wake Uncle Haymitch up, she drags in a big stick from the woods and pokes him with it from a safe distance. He bolts straight up and mutters and curses at her—a strange way to speak to a child—but it's better than the alternative, she supposes. Over time, waking him up becomes a kind of game: When she discovers the beneficial effects of throwing a cold bucket of water at him, she decides she's the winner.

She somehow knows not to ask why he sleeps with a knife. It's not because she isn't curious, but because she can't quite frame what seems like the right question. And if it isn't the right question, she knows that Uncle Haymitch isn't going to be serious _at all_. She knows this like she knows that if she wrinkles her nose at the stench of his house he will make fun of her. He'll make sure that it is vaguely presentable the next time she comes over, though. 

He calls her "kid" until the day she tells him she doesn't like it because she's basically a grown up. In response he grins at her and, despite continued protests, pins the name "sweet cheeks" on her.

In hindsight, she thinks she should have stuck with "kid." That name, however, has already been passed onto her brother, who gets upgraded from "snot-nose."

Her father seems to think the whole thing is very funny, but that's probably because in all of the years they have known one another, he's never had the misfortune to acquire his own Uncle Haymitch nickname (at least not that she knows of…).

Surprisingly, her uncle is also a fine storyteller who, as long as she promises not to say anything her parents, tells her all sorts of stories from Before about her mother and father that no other adults tell her. She learns about how her mother made someone topple into a punch bowl with her bow and arrow and how she used to have a "sinfully ugly" cat that she both loved and threatened to drown. There are also stories about her father: how he can frost himself into anything, how maybe he's so nice because Grandmother Mellark was legendarily not so nice, and how he can make almost anyone believe absolutely anything he says. In Uncle Haymitch's stories, her parents are like the characters from legends in her storybooks. They are the protagonists in comedies, dramas, fantasies, but never tragedies.

(Much later in her life Uncle Haymitch admits—while drunk, of course—that he had wanted her to have an antidote ready for what she would eventually find out about her parents from people outside of her family and in history books.)

The best game they play with Uncle Haymitch though is, hands down, the Goose Game. When her brother is three and she is seven, they meet in the field behind the Village to play for the first time. Before they play, however, Uncle Haymitch swears them both to secrecy, saying she must never, never, never, ever tell her parents what they are about to do. Especially her mother.

Her brother nods, simply and solemnly, while she giggles through her fingers. Neither of them questions the necessity of this and Uncle Haymitch pointedly pretends not to notice her disruption of his solemn oath. Once they have both crossed their hearts, he shows them how to play.

Uncle Haymitch begins by flinging his arms wide, like a ridiculous bird taking off in flight, and yelling at the top of his lungs before charging off into the middle of his small clutch of geese. Just seeing this spectacle makes her understand the purpose of the oath: her parents would die of laughter to see Uncle Haymitch like this. She follows suit as soon as the flock settles down again and the geese take off and honk in terror while Uncle Haymitch is laughing like she has never heard him laugh before. In fact, her brother is so scared of the combined noise of the geese and Uncle Haymitch that he begins to cry. Shushing him doesn't work immediately, so they decide to try distraction instead. 

Uncle Haymitch hefts him up onto his shoulder saying "Okay, little man, you're going to be my wing man." 

Her brother tearfully puts out his little arm exactly like Haymitch shows him and they all make the last charge of the day together.

It's inevitable, but one day her father hears the ruckus and stands at the end of the field, quietly watching Uncle Haymitch laughing like a mad man and chasing down his geese. Her father manages to stay quiet for about two minutes before he doubles over in laughter. In response, Uncle Haymitch merely changes direction and charges him instead.

Her little brother, oblivious to what is going on, cries out, "You too, Daddy! Play Goose Game!" No one can refuse her brother anything, so Uncle Haymitch grinds to a stop and waves for her father to join them. Suddenly all of them are waiting impatiently for the flock to settle again.

The members of her family return home with feathers sticking up haphazardly in their hair and dirt smeared over clothes and limbs, grinning like idiots. Her father re-enacts Haymitch's charge for her mother's benefit around the kitchen table, all the while making silly facial expressions that aren't even close to the real thing. Her mother laughs all the same until there are tears at the corners of her eyes. It is a very Good Day all around for her family.

Greasy Sae, too, is nominally a part of her family. She totters over, bringing stews and always leaves with a bag of pelts and a dozen or so freshly baked rolls. She is something of a legend in District 12 because in the times Before few people lived to any sort of advanced age in District 12. One day her brother innocently asks her, "Why are you so _old_?"

Her wrinkled face breaks out into a gap-toothed smile and she whispers "The secret is to eat as many squirrels as possible. And dog when you can get it."

Her brother and her both try not to make faces at the stew she has brought over.

Of course, other people come in and out of her life, too. They aren't really part of her family or her district, but they're people that Uncle Haymitch says are from Before.

Effie Trinket has clothes so bright that they almost blind her the moment Effie gets off the train. But the most interaction that they have is Effie patting her on the head and looking at her as if she doesn't know what to do with her. It's fine by her, as she's not quite certain what to do with Effie either, aside from being on very, _very_ good manners like her mother's told her to be.

Aside from Effie, another old friend of her mother's comes to visit a few times. He looks so much like her mother that, at first, she thinks he's part of their family. But after watching him, she knows he isn't. She can't really figure out _where_ he fits, though. Sometimes when her mother talks to him, she catches that unmistakable high tone in her voice that tells her that her mother is not telling the entire truth. And sometimes, when he doesn't think anyone is watching, her father follows their visitor with a strange look in his eyes. 

Out in the woods their visitor tells her that she and her brother should call him Uncle Gale, like they do Uncle Haymitch, but after everything she has observed she just calls him Mr. Hawthorne.

"You don't have to be so formal, you know."

His voice is warm and encouraging. She almost feels bad that she can't explain everything to him, but at the last moment she remembers what her mother always says about manners.

"I don't want to be rude, Mr. Hawthorne. My mother says I should try not to end up like Uncle Haymitch. Manners-wise, at least."

He looks puzzled and she senses there is an adult thing going on somewhere. Avoiding it, she runs back into the meadow, and, as an afterthought, waves for him to follow. If he's running he probably won't talk. The gesture seems to be enough for him because he doesn't bring it up again.

The second time he visits, he brings with him a woman that she recognizes from the pages of her schoolbooks. When she is introduced to this new and scary woman she says, "Hello, Miss Mason" and gets a little distracted by the fact that her mother is obviously rolling her eyes behind the guests. Uncle Haymitch, too. 

"Johanna," the woman says suddenly, kneeling down in front of her. "Call me Johanna."

The visitor smiles a not-so-nice smile. Johanna Mason looks her straight in the eyes and she stares back at her with all the intensity she can muster at such a young age. She's never seen an adult act like this woman before so she wonders if her behavior is some District 7 thing she doesn't know about.

"Sorry, Miss Mason," she replies, her tone not altogether apologetic.

Johanna Mason's palm comes to rest of the top of her head and she can see her mother tense up. But then Johanna Mason merely musses her hair and says with what even _she_ can tell is false sweetness, "You may call me Miss Mason if you can beat me in a game of arm wrestling."

She doesn't quite know what to do, but she doesn't really want to back down. But then again, it is pretty unlikely that a eight-year-old is going to win against a full grown adult…Let alone an adult that thinks it is fine to challenge a little kid to an arm wrestling match in the first place. But in the end, it's really the principle of the whole matter.

Her father probably sees that she is seriously considering taking the older woman up on her offer and rescues her. He puts his arm around her shoulder and gently guides her away while telling Johanna Mason, "I think I'm a bit more your speed."

She laughs at him and asks, "How many flour bales do you throw around nowadays?"

His answer is whip-quick and delivered with a smile: "More than you."

Later, as they are showing Mr. Hawthorne and Johanna Mason the new parts of Town (she doesn't want to give in and call her Johanna, so instead she compromises and calls her nothing out loud), she asks her father if this is one of Johanna's Bad Days.

He frowns and scratches his head before saying seriously, "I actually think this is one of her better ones."

And he's always like this, knowing exactly what to say or do. In fact, she thinks that her father is the sunshine of all of their lives. He is bright and cheerful and light and _good_. When she is young and everyone knows who he is, it doesn't surprise her because why shouldn't everyone know her father? His smile is always ready when someone comes into their home to place an order and his cakes and orange rolls are the best. It's the fact that they all know her mother, who rarely talks to any of them or goes into Town at all that clues her into the fact that something else is going on.

From an early stage she understands that her mother's place is within the family, at its heart, someone they only rarely share. By contrast, her father is the family's connection to the world outside of the Village. He's usually the one to talk to teachers, groups of curious people who sometimes drift outside of their house, and any visitors outside of the small group of old friends from Before. 

He is also the one that bakes the birthday cakes. And it is her expert opinion that no one will ever be able to replicate what her father does with sugar, frosting, and fondant.

Her mother's birthday when she is four is the first real memory she has of baking with her father. Then, she is still an only child (but her mother's rounded belly and an electric tension that runs through their house as the months go by announces a swift end to her right to use that label), and she neither knows nor cares that her family differs from anyone else's in District 12.

It turns out, however, that she is not what anyone would call a "natural" at baking. Or maybe it is just because she is four and has the unrealistic expectation that she will immediately be a baker like her father. ("Practice" he tells her in a secretive whisper, "You'll get there.") Her father just laughs and likes to say that she starts by dropping the flour bag and coating herself in it. Then he tells her how she stands on her tiptoes on a chair and dumps the flour and sugar into a bowl, raising a small snowstorm in their kitchen. A cloud hits her face and she ends up in a coughing fit.

When all the ingredients make their haphazard way into the bowl, she is so thickly coated with flour that her dark hair is hidden under a layer of white. The way she remembers it, her mother leans against the doorframe and is laughing at the two of them.

" _You're_ not supposed to be here!" she legendarily tells her. "It's your birthday so it's a surprise!"

Her mother pats her on the head, raising white clouds, "And _you're_ not supposed to be blonde."

She picks up one of her braids and looks at it questioningly, looking not-so-furtively over at her father's hair to see if her mother is right. Probably because his hair has also received the same dusting, she finds that the color matches.

"Nothing wrong with blondes," her father says from where he is leaning over the bowl, fixing her shoddy attempt at baking. "Now she just looks more like me."

(This the moment he captures later in the Plant Book, a small sketch on a page filled with her face: she has a suspicious look on her face, glaring at one long braid as her mother's smile glows in the background. It becomes a record of many, many Good Days.)

She doesn't do much of the frosting on her first cake, only a few inexpert swipes between layers. She sits on her father's lap with his big inverted frosting knife clasped unsteadily in her shaky hands. One of her father's rough, strong hands is wrapped securely around her own, the other expertly turning the cake on its plate. Her father's handmade, cream-colored frosting—rich and smooth—coats the cake evenly under her carefully guided movements.

Then, with her still on his lap, he begins to do the real work. He pipes on branches and leaves and yellow daisies and dandelions and the woods that extend beyond the old District boundaries; woods her mother is not supposed to go to until her sibling is born. Her father, of course, knows this like he knows everything else about her mother and so gives the woods to her for her birthday. She gets to squeeze the pastry bag once, to help, but the green frosting comes out in an ugly glop and her father just smiles and makes it beautiful, because that is what he does.

It's probably the fact that he turns all the messes into something better that his Bad Days are so much worse. It's like the sun has gone away.

In her early life she only sees her father like this once or twice, but she is used to listening and ever after can tell by silences and tones what goes on in her house. This day, she hears nothing and there is nothing waiting for breakfast in the morning. Even though her mother's absence is announced by her hunting jacket's vacant hook, her father is not where he is supposed to be. She waits for a few minutes, knowing that she should not go to school without one of her parents with her. But neither one seems to be there at all. In fact, the door to their room is closed and the only noise that she hears beyond it is a small shuffling.

She rationalizes that her father is just not up. He is sleeping in like Uncle Haymitch does, so she has to go wake him.

Only he's not sleeping. He's curled on the bed and his fists are balled in his eyes and suddenly she is scared and doesn't know why because this is her _daddy_ who bakes the best cakes and orange rolls and smiles. 

She calls him softly and asks him if he is not feeling well and, after a moment, he looks up. The look in his eyes is the thing she can't forget, even if from then on her parents are very careful not to let her seem him like this. His stare is cloudy and vacant and, worst of all, he stares at her like he has no idea who she is.

Her father is not her father right now. He's gone. That's the only way she can explain it.

"Katniss?"

He is looking at her, but she can only shake her head because that's her mother's name. It's not her he's asking for. Suddenly, she feels a real flutter of fear.

The next thing she knows is that her mother is picking her up and carrying her down the stairs to the sitting room. Her mother is shushing her and smoothing out her hair and only dimly does she realize that they are both crying. Her mother is murmuring "He's sick, sweetie, and I know you're scared, but you need to sit here for a moment while I go make him better."

She listens then and from upstairs hears the magic incantation of "Real or not real" repeated many times for the first time. She understands nothing of it for many years. She simply takes from the experience a certain terrible knowledge of an expression that lurks just behind her father's eyes and the clear conviction that her parents need each other very, very much.

Her mother, she knows now from experience, needs her and her brother almost as much as she needs her father.

Her mother has never been as easy to understand as her father is and many times she is prone to worrying and hard to coax a smile from. Much of her mother's joy is private, so she has to work for her songs and smiles, which is almost never the case with her father. 

However, never for one day in her life has she ever doubted her mother's love for her.

Her mother's Bad Days take a much different form than her father's and are much more predictable. Either her mother wants to be alone in the woods—her hunting jacket and her bow and arrow her only companions—or she _needs_ someone around her. In her sight. Or, even better, clasping her hand or curled up next to her.

Certain days of the year her mother is always like this. And as the years pass, she's smart enough to notice that some of the Bad Days are the same day every year. When she asks her father about one of them, he says very simply, "Your Aunt Prim died today." However, the explanation never seems enough to explain her mother's darkness.

(Years later, on one of Uncle Haymitch's Bad Days when he has an abundance of alcohol and no dearth of memories, she finally learns _that_ story. She compounds it by reading about the day the Capitol fell in a book that she keeps hidden under her bed. It's there she learns the phrase "pyrrhic victory," even though for years she thinks it has to do with fire and academic descriptions of human torches. That night she cries for an aunt she has never known and cries for what her mother must always know.).

One of the lessons she learns is that she is absolutely not allowed to disappear like other kids can. It is one of the worst things she can do to her mother. She only goes to the meadow one day, but doesn't tell either of her parents or Uncle Haymitch. She just wants to feel the sunshine and the grass.

Two hours later, the quiet is rent by her mother screaming her name. The whole of the Town talks about it for the next week when she thinks she's not listening: how Katniss Everdeen ran frantically screaming after her daughter through the whole of the district. Her mother holds her for five whole minutes when she finds her, until she thinks she might not be able to breathe because her grip is so tight.

Later, her father stretches out his hands and explains in shorthand way: "We're all she has."

She's heard about a grandmother somewhere—another Everdeen—who is mostly a faint voice on the phone from another time. She vaguely remembers meeting her once, but she doesn't ask and her father doesn't say anything. 

She sees the worry in her father's eyes, too, and he doesn't have to tell her that they're all he has, as well. (She does know about the bombing, knows no one from the original Town survived, and she knows her father is from the Town. It doesn't take much to understand why there are no Mellarks besides her little family).

But some days with her family are golden. There's no other way of describing them. On these mornings her father loads up freshly baked rolls and jam—orange for her, cheese buns for her mother, berry muffins for him and her brother—and they make a slow trek out past the old district boundary fence, out past the meadow, to a lake deep in the middle of the forest.

They arrive there tired and sweaty. Her brother swings happily between her parents and once, because she is just so _happy_ to be there, she jumps into the lake still wearing her sundress. It pools around her, a burst of yellow in the cool water. Her mother attempts to scold her for about thirty seconds, but then they all give way to a storm of laughter.

They eat and swim and talk and, best of all, her mother _sings_. Her mother sings and the whole forest falls silent so it can listen to her. She can feel her mother's love in every word, feels the melody swirl around them and bind their family together. On these days her mother tells them all about her grandfather, about Aunt Prim and her goat, about a girl who can leap through the tree tops like a bird, a man with sea green eyes who tied knots just like this…

And on these days it is okay to remember. Okay to speak. Okay to share. And everything shines.

Because not all her family's days are Bad Days. The truth is that the Good Days are far better than most people's good days because the adults in her life realize so much more acutely what they _mean_ and how much they really do matter. She learns later that most of the adults in her life have, at multiple times, seen their lives as hourglasses and had to count the grains of sand that flow out until there is nothing but a handful left.

And later she will know that they have sacrificed so much to make sure that all of the simple joys in her life are never juxtaposed against a gaping emptiness where good things used to be.

_**Fin, Part 2** _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Spoilers** through _Mockingjay_. This takes place after the epilogue.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I don't own _The Hunger Games_. I could be witty about not owning it, but that seems awfully clichéd by now.
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely . :)

**Part 3**

It's school where she learns most about the Games. In the earlier years, though, she only learns superficial details: there were 75 Games in total, Gamemakers made cruel traps to murder people, and the Treaty of Treason begins "Because they did rise up against the Might of The Capitol in heinous Rebellion…". She reviews and memorizes that the Games began with a Reaping that selected one boy and one girl from each District, and, with the notable exception of the 74th and 75th Games, there could only be one winner. 

She commits now famous pictures of her parents and the timelines of their actions to memory and tells herself that these are just things she has to know. (Berries terrify her after seeing a particular picture in her textbook. She can't touch them for a year afterwards. Anytime either of her parents eats them, she represses the urge to knock them from their hands.) When she goes home to the people whose younger selves she meets in her textbooks, she finds they are solid and real. It comforts her, a little. Sometimes, she can _almost_ convince herself that what she has learned in school is some far off, scary story.

But she knows that it is not just a story. The evidence is everywhere in her family. And, as much as she would like to know what it was like, she knows silence is much safer than prodding at things left unsaid and unshared. 

So she learns a half-story at school, patiently waiting to figure out a way that questions won't open long festering wounds. The narrative of her parents' lives unfolds in still pictures and excerpts from speeches.

The only video footage of the Games students are allowed to see before the age of twelve, however, is of the parades and interviews. At nine she sees her parents lit on fire and cries out in the middle of class, her heart in her throat. Before the projector even shuts off, she runs out of class and all the way to Uncle Haymitch's house to ask if that is why they have the lattice-work of faded scars that trail along their skin (He shakes his head sadly and says, "No. Those came later.").

When she is twelve, the school in District 12 decides to stage a mock Reaping as an "educational experience." People need to be reminded about the past, the thinking goes. They forget how it really was. 

The teachers prepare by setting a plankboard stage in front of the scaffolding that will become the new government building. Then they send out permission slips to parents with the red seal of old Panem rather than the school's seal for effect. The one they send her family never gets to her parents. She just forges their signatures on her participation form and then steals the one from her brother that allows him to watch and does the same. She thinks her and her brother, of all people, should get to experience it, though. Just so that they understand. But her parents don't need to know about it from her.

The news of the event reaches her household anyways. 

It ripples through their house and causes the rails to slip from well-ordered routines. For the first time in a long time, she sees her father grab the back of a chair with both hands as his eyes cloud over. It's bad enough that he doesn't even make an attempt to disguise what is happening. Her mother stands silent and shaking for a while, looking everywhere and nowhere all at once. 

She and her brother exchange a helpless look before he says softly, "Mom, it's gonna be okay."

It's so much worse, she knows, because she is twelve. 

Her mother kneels down and takes her by the shoulders, looking directly into her eyes. She holds her gaze steadily, because her mother needs it.

"I want you to know," she says, and begins a variation of her list-like recitation, "I want you to know that those days are gone. I want you to know that you are safe. I want you to know that nothing like that will ever, ever, _ever_ happen to you."

She wants to tell her mother that she knows this; that this is only a school lesson. But she also understands that her mother isn't really saying this for the benefit of her children. So, the words stick in her throat and she moves in and wraps her arms around her mother's neck. They stand like this for several minutes, until each quivering breath her mother takes shivers down her back.

The night before the School Reaping is probably more like a real Reaping in her family than in any other household in all of District 12. She sits in her father's lap like she hasn't in years and her mother holds her brother and croons out the Valley Song in the darkness. Her father's fingers never cease moving through the long strands of her hair and, at the end, when they turn on the lights her mother's tears shine in her brother's hair. When her parents leave them to sleep, she whispers to her little brother in the darkness that there are no Games and that the Reaping is not real. Even if her name gets chosen tomorrow, she'll get to come back home tomorrow night and all the nights after. It's just that Mom and Dad need this. 

She tries to explain to him that even though the Games and the Reaping are on the dead pages of history books now, she knows (and knows better each year) that for their parents it will never ever _stop_ being real. 

The next morning the bang of the front door jolts her awake and she knows that, were she to look out the window, she'd see her mother disappear into the morning grey. When they head down the stairs, the smell of flour and baking bread is absent. The light is still out at the end of the hall signaling that their father has not come out of his room—she knows it will be a REALLY bad day then. Her mother must not have known, though. Otherwise she would not have left them here. She takes her brother's hand and they tip toe down the stairs because, when her father has one of his Bad Days, they both know that it is much wiser to leave him alone. She makes them a breakfast of day-old cheese buns and they get ready to walk to the government building.

She knocks on Uncle Haymitch's door to let him know about her father, but to her surprise, he doesn't appear to be in.

On the way to the square, she notices that many of the parents have joined them, their children wearing clothes from Before when no one had known if their trip to the square would go only one way. Some of the original residents of District 12 have their daughters' hair braided elaborately and secured with faded ribbons while their sons wear slightly yellowed button-down shirts and pinching shoes. The clothes, relics from when District 12 was still dependent on coal, are downright shabby by today's standards.

One mother, who is dressed in the same anachronistic way, walks with a daughter who is picking at an ill-fitting blouse and high-waisted skirt and complaining loudly.

"We would have been lucky to wear such clothes once a year on Reaping Day," the girl's mother lectures. Her daughter just rolls her eyes when her mother looks away.

Pushing through the crowds of adults and their school age children, she finds Greasy Sae, who looks almost surprised to see her. She hands her brother off to her and goes to check-in. Instead of Capitol Peacekeepers counting up names and tessarae, it is only Mr. Blevins and the four other teachers who handle the small population of students in District 12. He signs them in using school attendance sheets, politely asking their names and directing them to their proper places—boys on one side, girls on the other, each group sorted by age.

She joins the group of her fellow 12-year-old females on the front right of the stage. The groups around her are small, nothing like the crowds that would have been at a real Reaping in the days Before. Although District 12 is slowly coming to life again, its population is still one of the smaller ones in the Panem Republic.

Most of the students are talking to one another and laughing. The tension and electric anxiety of her house is nowhere to be found here: among the gathered students there is only an air of thrilling novelty. Indeed, the conversations only stop when a ridiculous voice rings out, "Happy Hunger Games everyone!"

The woman on the stage is probably the most ridiculous person anyone assembled has ever seen. The very fact that her hair is pink and her old suit is a shocking fuchsia is enough to send several of the students tittering. Her accent is high and affected and, in a day where Caeser Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith are no longer household names and the Capitol accent is now a badge of shame, Effie Trinket is a historical relic come to life. Although she has met Effie before once or twice, she still feels a little sorry that somehow they got her here. Effie, however, seems consummately professional and continues on unfazed.

"And may the odds be _ever_ in your favor."

A film rolls behind them and she sees her first scenes from an actual Games—it's Johanna Mason with an axe…an axe that she has just buried it in the neck of a boy about two years older than her. A picture of the prickly, damaged woman, now much older, emerges in her mind and something horrible falls into place explaining her. Then, there's a boy about two years older than her, his trident flashing. His appearance elicits moments of scattered applause from the adults. Several more scenes roll by with people she doesn't recognize, accompanied by a deep voice intoning, "Only the strongest survive to gain the glory of victory."

Suddenly, coinciding with a knot forming in her stomach, her mother's voice begins to repeat in her head, "I want you to know that nothing like that will ever, ever, _ever_ happen to you."

It occurs to her then that she probably shouldn't have brought her brother here. But, a quick glance over shows that Greasy Sae is covering his eyes. She, too, wants to shut her eyes, but doesn't because she wants to understand.

The film ends with a full reading of the Treaty of Treason and the attention turns back to Effie Trinket who is now speaking about the "honor" and "glory" that await a Victor in the Hunger Games. The more Effie talks, the more laughter she generates, but she continues smiling. Watching her parent's friend, she idly wonders if she's doing a kind of penance. But her father told her that Effie Trinket was "imprisoned by the Capitol as a rebel" during the war and because she's seen what that phrase means for her father, no one has to explain to her what they are _really_ trying to say by that. Effie's speech gives way to a fanfare in which the symbol of such honor and glory—one of the few remaining living Victors—is unveiled.

And there is her Uncle Haymitch, weaving to the front of the stage.

Her first thought is that he is far, _far_ drunker than she has ever seen him in her entire life (and this is saying something, because her Uncle has taught her the meaning of "drunk" since she was four. And, as a byproduct of the drunkenness, she's known to dodge the knife he waves when she goes to wake him up on the Bad Days since she was six). 

But, knowing Uncle Haymitch like she does, (and even allowing for the fact that Effie might have something to do with it) she knows without a doubt he is probably so drunk that he doesn't even realize where he is. It's one of the only explanations she can think of as to how they got him up on that stage again.

Suddenly, he looks at Effie Trinket as if she is a fuchsia-spattered figure from a nightmare. Only then does he finally notice that he is standing on a stage in front of most of District 12. 

Just by looking at his expression, she can hear all of her mother's cries at night and see all of the clouds that cover her father's eyes at times.

It doesn't help that at that moment, Uncle Haymitch begins bellowing. None of the sounds he makes form anything close to words, but there is a sense of anger and terror in every incoherent syllable. Most don't laugh, because Haymitch is something of a legend and hero here and, although she and her brother are familiar with his drunken moods, even they have not seen him like this. Now Effie is trying to shush him and she distinctly hears her trill "Now where are your manners!" but this sets him flailing. Her wig becomes a casualty of the encounter.

Through the din she hears a small voice calling her name. She looks back to see that her brother has wriggled out of Greasy Sae's grasp and is barreling towards the stage. Thom and a couple of others are behind him, but it will take them some time to weave through the crowd. All the while, Uncle Haymitch continues to bellow.

She takes a breath and steels herself.

Suddenly, she's breaking out from the space where the twelve-year-olds are and mounting the stairs. Mr. Blevins is right there hissing at her to get back down.

"This is wrong," she says loudly. "Do whatever you want, but I'm taking Uncle Haymitch home."

The hissing has become authoritarian orders. She's interfering with the educational process. She's spoiling the mood. He'll tell her teacher, the mayor, her parents.

"Fine!" she yells. She notices that Thom and her brother have been joined by several of the old District 12ers and they're all milling towards the stage, shouting to let Haymitch go. Mr. Blevins's large form is still blocking her way.

She honestly doesn't know what possesses her to shout what she does next. She just somehow knows that they are the magic words for the occasion.

"I volunteer to take his place or do whatever! I just want him to go home. He's been through enough!" She gets right up into Mr. Blevins' face.

"Do you hear me? You don't even understand what he's been through! Enough!"

No one moves to help the teacher now because they know who she is and today she has braided her hair back into one plait in honor of her parents. Moreover, they all know that she is the child of two Victors from the same Games and there is still the smack of the impossible about her. And her words work like magic on those who have seen a real Reaping. Even Uncle Haymitch stops yelling and flailing at the phrase "I volunteer." He mutters something, his jaw going slack, but the words don't make sense and the only one she catches anyways is "sweetheart."

"Sweetheart" is a name that he has never applied to her. It is one of those things that belongs only to her mother. Mostly, it belongs to arguments with her mother. Dimly, she becomes aware that every other conversation has ceased and she feels the weight of everyone's gaze upon her.

Mostly she finds that she doesn't care. 

Uncle Haymitch's cloudy and unfocused eyes are still looking up at her like he's seen a ghost. Like she is the second coming of Katniss Everdeen, volunteering for the aunt she has never ever known.

But if she's a ghost of her mother, she's a rather pale one. She has no bow or hunting skill, for one, and she's never been hungry the way her mother was when she was her age. The only sacrifice she has made is a bit of sleep now and again when her parents' nightmares wake her up. And Uncle Haymitch knows all this, she thinks. Just not now.

Abruptly though, the spell is broken as Uncle Haymitch turns the side of his head and vomits all over her shoes. As the pungent spell of the semi-digested white liquor overwhelms her, she adds her shoes to the list of her inferior sacrifices for the day. Then, without comment, she reaches over and takes his arm over her shoulder so that she can help him shuffle on home. Thom, who lives two houses down from her, has finally made his way up onto the stage and helps her escort Haymitch down through the crowd. On the way down, they gain a small honor guard of adults.

She keeps walking as Mr. Blevins rushes to salvage the "educational opportunity" and gives a deeply awkward thank you to Haymitch for offering his "services" over the loudspeakers. She looks back to see Effie, whose wig is now askew on her head, continue on with the whole farce. Greasy Sae leads her brother behind her and Thom as they make a grim funereal procession back to the Village for what remained of Uncle Haymitch's dignity.

Later on she hears what happens and is glad she wasn't there: Sarah Perkins, a sunny 16-year-old and Trevor Martindale, a 14-year-old known troublemaker, are those who are called to the stage. The way the people in Town tell it, Trevor laughs as his name is read and bounces his way up to the stage as some misguided students break out into scattered bursts of applause. The two "tributes" disappear for only two hours and then are released. In the Town the next morning, she hears that Trevor's father, who is a gentle and soft-spoken man who acts as the District tailor, meets his son at the door with a thin switch in his hand.

As he hits the back of Trevor's bare legs, his father only says a few names. Mr. Martindale begins with "Haymitch Abernathy" and "Maysilee Donner" and continues down the list, giving him a snapping _thwack!_ that sharply cuts through the air at each utterance. Her parents' names, the story goes, are the last ones to leave the tailor's mouth.

The tale of Trevor's punishment spreads throughout the district like wild fire and the tailor accomplishes what the reenactment of history does not. Once, one of the people old enough to participate in a Reaping from Before catches Trevor complaining. The way Greasy Sae tells it, he had looked at him and then said simply, "Boy, that was nothing compared to the Games. You would be thanking your lucky stars and Haymitch Abernathy if you managed to get past three days in an actual arena."

Every time she sees Trevor Martindale, she wants to tell him that he only has to look at her family to confirm the wisdom of those words.


End file.
